Children find refuge in a safer virtual world

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Nidaa's hand deftly moves the mouse, her eyes glued to the
screen and a broad smile lighting up her veiled face. For an
increasing number of Iraqi children, computers offer a welcome
escape from the chaos of the streets.

"In this bleak atmosphere it is important to give children a
glimmer of hope, far from the sounds of explosions and the news of
death," says Safa el-Din al-Sultani, who runs a computer centre for
children in the heart of Baghdad.

The Karrada Cultural Centre for Youth Computer Teaching is in a
villa that belonged to one of Saddam Hussein's bodyguards before
the dictator was toppled in April 2003.

For many children in this middle-class neighbourhood, computer
games, painting or drawing programs open up a new world and offer a
brief respite from the grim reality of ongoing battles between
insurgents and the US military and Iraqi forces.

More than 130 Iraqi boys and girls, aged eight to 14, from 17
schools in the Karrada area attend a two-hour computer course every
day, delivered by volunteers fresh out of university.

"The children are eager to learn. They want to know how to use
computers, how to play games and how to draw," says Mithal Alaa,
27, who studied at the Nationalist Computer Science Centre under
the old regime.

"We teach these children for free. Most of them come from
families who cannot afford to have a computer in their homes," she
says.

Sultani says the idea of teaching children sprung into his mind
after the fall of the former regime and the centre would have not
been established without the help of the US military.

"The Americans welcomed the idea and they gave us 37 computers
and 10 PlayStations," he says.

"Iraq is considered to be an underdeveloped country. We have
ignorance here and there are no centres to inform adults and youths
about computers, which have become an essential element in our
life. Now we are willing to educate children and adults about the
importance of learning about computers."

During Saddam's iron-fisted rule, owning a computer was
theoretically allowed but remained the privilege of the elite.

"Computers were not forbidden but were very expensive. Most of
the Iraqis were worried about survival and owning a computer was
beyond their imagination," says Sultani.

Divided into three modest classrooms, the young students are
studiously sitting in front of their screens. They draw all kinds
of shapes, most using the brightest colours they can find: yellow,
pink and green. Others simply write their names.

"I am here to learn about computers," says Ali, an 11-year-old
boy already aware that the skills he is developing are more than a
recreation. "Now I enjoy drawing and playing games. But in the
future it will help me in my studies," he says. "When I grow up I
want to be a computer programmer."